Laptops Suck - Part 3
Here we are again talking about the many splendid wonders of laptops and why they suck; for mobile DJing that is. And as the old saying goes, the third time is a charm - so I have pondered for many days as to the perfect content for this third article in the “Laptops Suck” series. Well OK, actually I haven’t given it much more than a passing thought here and there as other things have vied for short attention span, but that never stopped me before.
Actually, after the past few days I have seen a number of threads on various chat boards about the hot weather, overheating computers and so on - which ties into part of what I mentioned in the previous two “Laptops Suck” articles as well as the Clean Underwear and Your CPS article - a few of those threads I have participated in too. Of course after little deliberation I decided that the next article should cover some of why laptops have a hard time handling the heat versus that of a CPS with its large vents and beefy fans. Ironically, the problem with moving air in and out of a laptop is that they actually do not “suck” or even ”blow” enough compared to any other type of CPS from lunchbox configurations to rack mounted solutions. I’ll explain…
Laptops, in all of their portable glory, are made to be very compact and portable. All this compactness and portability comes at a price though - they would be rather heavy and awkward if they packed the proper facilities to move air into, through and out of its innards to remove more heat. The ugly insides of your laptop are very restricted with everything mounted very closely together - and this quite simply compounds the fact that laptops are not capable of moving that much hot air to begin with. That’s not even mentioning the fact that they use some of the smallest, itty-bitty fans made and that they usually only have a single fan at that.
Instead of writing lots of paragraphs talking about physics, thermal dynamics and all sorts of other geeky subjects, here’s an experiment for you to try at home:
Take a coffee stirrer and put one end in your mouth with the other just hanging out there unrestricted - now exhale through the straw as hard as you can. Takes some effort to exhale all of your breath through those tiny openings, huh?
Now take a normal straw that you get BK Industries or any other fa(s)t food place and repeat the above exhale - this goes much quicker and takes considerably less effort to exhale completely, right?
This is the same general principal of moving air through a laptop (a coffee stirrer) versus that of a CPS (the straw). If you are able to move more air in less time and with less effort, then you are also able to get rid of more heat - it’s just that simple. Thus concludes reason #3 why your laptop sucks (or blows) - but not literally.
Tags: computer dj, digital dj, laptop dj, laptops suck, mp3 dj
